Important. This is the original version of this web page, and is left here for interest so you can see how things were when digital TV first started.
This page will not be further updated. for current and up to date information on digital television refer to the new version of this page here

You can get to this page directly at http://homepages.tesco.net/~D.G.Hewitt/digitaltv.html
or by using the domain name http://how.to/digitaltv Also this page is linked from some of my other websites.

This web page has been created to tell you all you need to know about Digital Television in the UK and how to receive as many free to view digital television channels as possible, without signing up to a subscription package, and without breaking the law. I have created this simple site to provide as much information as I know. I created it, because prior to taking the plunge and going digital, I had lots of questions myself, but found it hard to find all the answers. Hopefully by reading this site, you will find out all you need to know so when you decide to go digital you will know how to do it, and exactly what to expect.

This page was originally created on 6th May 2001 and last updated on 28^th January 2004.

Simply click one of the hyperlinks from the following contents list, or just scroll down to read the whole lot.

If you want to find out about the Electrical, Electronic, Software, website design, component sales and TV/Satellite aerial services that I offer (including digital TV site surveys), please visit my RF Electronics website at RFElectronics.co.uk   If you want to find out about the B&B accomodation, hillwalking and mountain bike hire we will soon be offering in the Highlands of Scotland, look also at my other website at HighlandServices.info

CONTENTS

table of all free digital terestrial and satellite channels

1. What is Digital Television?, Why do I want it?, and what's this about analogue switch off?
2. Overview of Terestrial Digital Television
3. Overview of Satellite Digital Television
4. How to get a free to view Digital Terestrial system installed.
5. How to get a free to view Digital Satelite system installed.
6. How to watch Digital TV all around the house.
7. Some "hidden" digibox features.
8. What don't you get with Digital TV.
9. What about multi channel viewing.
10. What about Video recorders and PVR's.
11. Disclaimer.
12. Other usefull sites.

1. What is Digital Television?, Why do I want it? and what's this about analogue switch off?

Up until a few years ago, all television broadcast in the UK was transmitted using Analogue. This is the familiar normal television that we are all used to, giving us a choice of 4 or 5 channels (6 in a few places) received with a normal television aerial, with the only cost being the annual television licence.

Now television is in the process of evolving, and it's going digital. Digital simply means a different way of transmitting the information, and has nothing to do with where it comes from. The difference between analogue and digital television is exactly the same as the difference between analogue and digital audio (for instance vinyl records vs compact discs).

A Digital television transmission uses less bandwith to transmit the same information, (mainly because the picture information is compressed) so using the same available space as Analogue television, it is possible to broadcast a greater number of channels. Remember a few years ago when Channel 5 was added, there was a great problem finding enough space to fit it, and in some area's reception of channel 5 is poor or non existant, because there's no spare space left for more transmitters. Digital television will solve this by allowing many more channels in the same amount of space.

Digital television first started on Satelite in about 1998 broadcast by Sky. It's easier to implement this, because the new digital signals are broadcast by a new satelite, and Sky have been offering free equipment to receive it. In late 1998 Digital television also started on Terestrial television (The term Terestrial means it is transmitted from a a normal transmitter mast and received with your normal television aerial). However at present this new terestrial digital television is having to squeeze into the gaps between the existing analogue television broadcasts, so has to operate at a lower power to avoid interference. This is limiting the coverage of Digital Terestrial, at least for the time being, so Terestrial Digital television is not yet available as widely as the present Analogue television.

There is a third way to receive Digital television, and that's via Cable. However you can't get a completely free cable service, so that's of little interest to people just wanting free television, and it is not available in many parts of the country. However since it usually comes with a telephone and internet services as well, it can offer good value for money for those wanting those services.

So what of the future. Well the Government want to stop all analogue television transmissions completely within the next 5 to 10 years, Some time between 2006 and 2010. They can only do this when the majority of the population have the ability to receive Digital TV in some form. It remains to be seen how this will work, and what incentives there are for changing to digital, but already they have conceeded that analogue switch off by 2006 is unlikely.

What is certain is that one way or another Analogue television in the UK has only a short life left, so everybody should be making plans for switching over to Digital Television within the next few years. However as you will see reading the rest of this site, it's not quite that easy just yet, as the equipment required is either costly or hard to obtain, although that is thankfully now changing. But to do nothing is not a long term option either, because like it or not, television is going to go digital, and if you do nothing then you will one day be left with a blank screen.

So What's the first thing to do. Well in my opinion, what you should NOT do, is buy any more ordinary analogue televisions or video recorders, because the more televisions you have, the more problems, or costs you will have when you eventually have to switch to digital. So don't go and buy a new ordinary television, make do with the one you have got for a bit longer, or if you really have to have another one, then buy something cheap second hand, that will do until you are ready to switch over in a well planned and thought out way. Again reading the rest of this site will tell you more about the equipment and how and where to get it.

One of the bigest problems with Digital Television, is that up until recently, the only promotion it has received has been by the two Pay TV service providers Sky and ITV Digital (formerly called On Digital). These two providers have primarily been aiming to sell you a subscription to their pay television service. That's fine if you want to pay extra to have a much greater number of channels available, which are only available to subscribers to their service. However nobody has been promoting Free to view digital television. So most people only associate Digital TV with Pay TV. Fortunately that is now changing, and the BBC in particular have started a promotional campaign to increase awareness of Digital Television, particularly Free to View Digital Television.

So what other advantages are there in going digital. Well the most obvious one is more channels. If you choose terestrial digital, then there are at least 20 extra channels (as well as the 5 you already have) and by choosing Satellite for your digital television, you will get about 25 extra channels for free.

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2. Overview of Terestrial Digital Television

Terestrial Digital as described above, simply means it comes from the same transmitter masts as analogue television, and is received with a normal aerial. However you can't receive it with a normal analogue television on it's own. You need some extra equipment (more of that later).

Firstly let's clear up some confusion about the differences between free Digital Terestrial television and the pay television which was offered by ITV Digital (formerly called On Digital).

When Digital terestrial television started in 1998, it was operated by ON Digital. There were about 12 free digital terestrial television channels available and anything up to about 40 extra subscription channels which you had to pay to receive. Later ON Digital changed it's name to ITV Digital, and then in the summer of 2002, ITV Digital collapsed and went into liquidation. It had failed to win enough subscribers to be a viable business.

In October 2002 a new service started to replace the old ITV Digital. It is run by a consortium formed mainly by the BBC and Crown Castle and operates under the name FreeView. As it's name sugests it is completely free. There is no longer any terestrial pay television.

So now you have about 24 digital television stations available for free. You don't have to pay any subscriptions to anyone to receive them, all you need is a normal UK television licence (which you have already don't you?). You will need some extra equipment which you must buy, more of that in chapter 4.

Digital terestrial TV is not without it's problems at the moment. Because the new digital stations are having to be squeezed in between the existing analogue ones, reception in some area's is not good, and many part's of the country can't get it at all. This is a bit of a Chicken and Egg situation. Once analogue is switched off, the digital signals can be transmitted with higher power and from more transmitters, so coverage should be as good as analogue is at present. But this can't happen until analogue is switched off and analogue won't be switched off until most people can receive digital........

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3. Overview of Satellite Digital Television

Digital satelite TV is perhaps easier to understand, because it's completely seperate to normal terestrial TV. You need a dish and a set top box to receive digital satellite (though there was at least one television on the market with the satelite receiver built in).

Satellite TV itself is not new. Analogue Satellite TV has existed in the UK for over 10 years. Originally for analogue satellite TV you used an 80cm diameter dish and a set top box However when Sky launched the new digital Satellite system, they managed to make the dish smaller (more powerfull satellite) and you need a different box, so they coined the terms "Minidish and Digibox"

So to receive Digital satelite TV you need a Minidish and Digibox, which then plugs into your normal TV (you don't need a special or new Digital TV set to receive digital television from Satellite). The Minidish must be mounted on a south facing wall of your house (actually it points 28 degrees east of south). This to some people is offensive, and many won't consider satelite TV because they consider a dish on the house, especially if it's the front of the house, to be an eyesore. Well this is not as bad as it used be. The current Minidishes are much smaller and neater than the old analogue dishes were, and it is possible (at a small extra cost) to have the dish mounted on the chimney (more of that later), where it looks very much less of an eyesore than on the front of a house.

A satellite dish has to be pointed directly at the satellite, and it's alignment is very much more critical than an ordinary television aerial. But don't be put off by that. It's normal to have the system installed for you, either by a Sky engineer or an independant installer and once set up, it should need no further adjustment.

Now you have your Minidish and Digibox set up, what else do you need. Well unlike Terestrial digital TV you will need a viewing card of some sort. Originally all BBC channels, ITV, CH4 and Five used to be encrypted, and any UK resident was entitled to a "Free to View" or Solus card to decrypt these channels. The issuing of these cards was administered on behalf of the BBC. However this changed in mid July 2003, when the BBC channels stopped encrypting. Now only ITV, CH4 and Five are encrypted. This also coincided with the time when Sky were updating their encryption system and were therefore issuing new cards to all subscribers. The vast majority of people with Free to View cards, found that in about September 2003, they stopped working as the remaining "free to view" channels, namely ITV, CH4 and five switched to the new encryption system. Thus a lot of non subscribing satellite viewers were no longer able to receive these channels.

In November 2003, no doubt as a result of the great many complaints received, a new issuer of "Free to View" cards was set up. Details can be found at free2view.tv However the new form of Free to View or Solus cards are no longer free, you have to pay a one of fee of about £23. There is also some uncertainty how long this issuer will continue issuing new cards. All I can reccommend is you visit that website for more information, or phone the telepohone number given there.

So how many free channels can you get. The simple answer is loads more than terestrial digital, simply because there is much more bandwith available. I have tabulated all the free satellite and terestrial channels here. Or another very good listing is available on this other excelent Web Site. which is probably updated more frequently than this one.

ITV2 and a few others are a bit strange.About 8 channels have been included on Sky Digital, but as a subscription channels in spite of them beeing free channels on Digital Terestrial. We can only hope that as free to view digital television increases, that this may change.

ITV1 broadcasts 16 different regional variations. Officially you are only entitled to receive your local region (according to your postcode) but it is possible using the "add channels" function of the Sky Digibox to receive all 16 regions, should you for instance want to watch a different regional news program.

In addition to these channels, there are at least a further 30 shopping channels, and at least 8 more free channels broadcasting in foreign languages, such as Bangladeshi, Chinese, Indian etc so these are available if they interest you.

You also get some radio stations. Actually quite a lot of radio stations, currently at least 50. If you link the audio output of the Digibox to your HiFi, you have easy access to all these in high quality stereo.

I have only talked here about Sky Digiboxes. It might seem strange that when considering a satellite system to receive "free" channels, I should have to have a receiver made for Sky, who are primarilly a pay TV service operator. Well this is because the encryption system used by Sky (and all the free channels) is owned by Sky, and Sky won't make the technology available to anyone else. So the fact is, if you want to receive all the UK free satellite channels, then the only way to do so is with a Sky Digibox. There are many other digital satellite receivers available including many "free to air" receivers, but none of these will receive the encrypted channells. However now that the BBC channels are no longer encrypted, and there is uncertainty over ITV, CH4 and Five, then a Free to Air satellite receiver now looks an increasingly viable proposition.

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4. How to get a free to view Digital Terestrial system installed

The equipment you need is either a Set Top Box or Digital Adaptor, to convert an ordinary television into a digital television, or you can buy an Integrated Digital Television. Both are quite different ways of receiving digital terestrial television, so I will describe each seperately.

An Integrated Digital Television (or IDTV) is a television which has been designed from the start to receive digital terestrial television as it stands, without needing extra set top boxes. The term IDTV is now going out of fashion, and you are more likely to encounter the term DVB, standing for Digital Video Broadcasting. So this is the logo you are most likely to find displayed on a new integrated digital television. They usually also contain a normal analogue receiver as well, so they will also receive the existing analogue channels as well the new digital channels.

There is one big problem at the moment with IDTV's. That is they are only available at the moment with large wide screens, and at a much greater cost than an equivalent analogue only television. This limits their appeal to those wanting a large "home cinema" type system. Eventually however this must change, and one day all televisions of all sizes will have a digital tuner built in, as eventually digital television will become the normal. For this reason, my personal recomendation if you are wanting a new television is to wait until the size that you want is available for a realistic price with a built in digital tuner.

A Set Top Box for digital terestrial television, is a box, about the size of a video recorder (although some of the more recent ones are much smaller), that connects between the aerial and an ordinary analogue television set, and allows you to receive the new digital channels.

Set top boxes to receive Terestrial Digital TV used to only be available "on loan" by ITV Digital, for as long as you subscribe to the pay channels. However, this has at long last changed. There are now several different digital set top boxes or "adaptors" on sale now for £99 or less which should be widely available in high street shops.

When you buy either an integrated television or set top box / adaptor, you will be responsible for taking it home, and setting it up. This is a very simple process and the box will scan for all available channels.

Some people will still have their old On Digital set top boxes. These were originally issued "on loan" and for a while there was confusion and uncertainty over their ownership. At one point the liquidators of ITV Digital wrote to ex subscribers, offering to sell them their old "loan" set top boxes for £39.99. Then in a supprise move Carlton and Granada struck a deal with the liquidators to buy the boxes on behalf of their owners. So now they remain your property, and you are free to continue using them, or dispose of them as you wish. If you want to use one of these for the new Freeview service, they will work, but you will again have to tell the box to scan for channels by using the option "store channels" from the "getting started" menu.

You might find that your aerial is not good enough. Even though you may get a perfectly good picture on your present ordinary television, doesn't necessarily mean it's good enough to receive Terestrial Digital TV.

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5. How to get a free to view Digital Satelite system installed.

Up until the end of December 2001, it used to be possible to get a "free minidish and digibox" without having to subscribe to any of the Sky pay channels. All you had to do was pay £100 for the installation. For a long time it was in fact the cheapest way to get the equipment to receive the free to view digital channels (This is the system I had installed in April 2001). Throughout the whole of 2002 this offer was only available to Sky subscribers, if you wanted a free to view system Sky would have charged you £215 for the box and £100 for the install.

However beginning 1st January 2003, the "free minidish and digibox" is again available to non subscribers, though now you have to pay an install fee of £120. You are obliged to keep the digibox connected to a working telephone line for the first 12 months, and the offer is one free digibox per household, so you may not qualify if your household has previously benefited from a free digibox.

If you don't qualify for a free digibox and minidish, you only viable option is to try and find a second hand digibox for sale. It is normal to own the digibox, even if you got it free, so it is quite possible to find them for sale second hand on places like ebay or other local advertisments are certainly worth a look. If you buy a second hand system and are not happy to install the dish yourself, then I might be able to help you if you live close to Oxfordshire. See my other site RFElectronics.co.uk for more details. Alternatively look in Yellow pages for an independant satellite installer in your area.

If you are getting a new box from Sky, and you happy to have the dish mounted on the wall of the house, and are not particular about which make of Digibox you have, then choose Sky to do the installation. They will only mount the dish on the wall of the house (up to a maximum height of 30 feet) and you will not necessarily get a choice of which make of Digibox you get. You might also be charged extra to provide a telephone extension, so if there's no phone point where you want the Digibox, then you might want to buy an extension lead ready for it.

However I chose to be different. I wanted the minidish mounted on the chimney, where it's much less conspicuous than on the wall of the house. The main reason for this is that for the time being at least I am keeping my old 80cm analogue dish on the side of the house and having the minidish on the chimney makes it less obvious that I have two dishes. Because Sky won't do a chimney installation, I had to ring around the local installers (from Yellow Pages) to find one that would do it. In fact I found two, both of who'm would do it for £120. Another advantage of a local installer was I had a choice of what make of digibox to have. I took his recomendation of a Panasonic DSB31 as being in his experience the most reliable. So I paid a £20 premium to have the dish on the chimney, but I think it looks so much neater so was worth it. Incidently my local installer would have charged extra if he had to provide an extra telephone socket, hence my reccomendation to fit an extension socket in advance of his visit.

In theory you will be asked to sign an Interactive services agreement, which basically means you must keep the Digibox connected to a telephone line for the first year, to enable you to use the interactive services. Well no paperwork was produced and I didn't sign a thing. I paid the installer by cheque, and received a receipt from him as the guarantee for the box, but nothing else, so I assume the installer signed the agreement on my behalf. I am complying with the terms of the interactive offer (i.e keeping the box connected to the telephone line).

If you buy second hand, you will have to do the install yourelf, or pay an independant installer to do it for you (I can help if you live in Oxfordshire). It is not quite so easy to align a dish for digital satellite as it used to be for analogue, but it is possible with patience. Have a look at this site for some help and advice on how to do it. With a second hand box, there is no obligation to connect it to the telephone line, and the digibox will work fine without this connection.

Now the viewing card. You used to be able to get a "Free to View" card to decrypt the free but encrypted cnannels. These are no longer being issued. So unfortunately any new instalation will not allow you to receive ITV, CH4 and Five. Watch this space for developments as many are, quite rightly, outraged at this situation.

The installer should take care of all the necesary set up and leave you with a fully working system. That's another advantage of Satelite Digital, you don't normally have to set it up yourself (unless buying second hand).

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6. How to watch Digital TV all around the house.

A Normal installation is with the Set Top box in the living room, connected to the main TV. This is fine if you only want to watch your new digital channels on that TV, but what if you have other TV's for instance in the Kitchen, Dining room or bedrooms. I wanted to be able to watch Digital channels on any TV in the house.

The first thing I did was to move the location of the digibox, up to my spare bedroom. Why? Well I hate a clutter of assorted boxes in the living room. So in my spare bedroom I have the Digibox, two Analogue satelite receivers and my old spare video recorder. All connected together and piped (via RF) to all 3 TV's.

The order I have them is Analogue Satelite receiver, Video Recorder, then Digibox. I put the Digibox last in an attempt to get the best possible picture quality. It means I can't record Digital TV on this upstairs video rocorder, (but can still do so on the Video in the living room). You might need to experiment with a different order to see which gives the best picture.

The Digibox has two RF outputs. The main one goes direct to my TV in the living room. The second goes via a splitter, to feed the other two TV's in the bedroom and Dining room. That's another reason for having the Digibox as the last one in the chain.

Okay so the picture quality via RF is not as good as through a Scart connector, but to me it's acceptable.

An alternative, and perhaps more common way is to keep the Digibox in the living room, connected to the main TV via a Scart lead, and connect the second RF output to one or more extra TV's.

So now you can view Digital TV anywhere, but what about changing channel. You need a remote control extender. There are two ways to do this. You can either buy a remote control extender that is made specifically for a Digibox called a TV Link. this has a receiver next to the extension television and relays the signal back via the coaxial cable to the Digibox. These work well, but would only work for the Digibox, so for me this was not the best choice.

Instead I use a more general purpose remote control extender, called a Powermid XL. It has a transmitter unit in each room (you buy the transmitters individually and can have any number of them) which relays the infra red signal by radio (433MHz) to the receiver in the spare room. There is no electrical connection to the digbox. The receiver unit just stands in front of the digibox etc and it relays via an infra red emitter built into it exactly what one of the ransmitters has picked up. This has the advantage that it works as a remote control extender for my Digibox, Analogue satelite receiver and video recorder.

Note that I chose to have the digibox installed in the living room initially, because my final setup could be termed "non standard" for which an aditional charge might have be made. I also wanted to be sure this particular make of remote control extender would work first before moving the Digibox upstairs.

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7. Some "hidden" digibox features.

The first thing you need to know about a Sky Digibox, is there is a hidden Installation menu. You shouldn't normally need to change anything on this, but if you want to have a look, you access it by pressing Services, 4, 0, 1, Select. The most likely thing you would want to change here is the RF output channel number, if you are having interference problems.

The software in a Digibox is supposed to update automatically, when a new version is released. However sometimes this does not happen. I found that I could not access the new Digital text services, so needed a software upgrade. To force the digibox to update it's software do the following. Unplug the mains to the Digibox. Wait two minutes. Hold down the BackUp button on the Digibox. Plug in the mains. Keep holding the Back Up button, until all the lights on the digibox come on. The box is now updating it's software, and if you turn on your TV you see a message telling you so (providing it is connected to the TV via a Scart lead, you will not see this message if it is connected via RF).

Likewise the EPG (electronic program guide) should update automatically. If it does not you can force it to update, simpy by unplugging the mains power, waiting 2 minutes, then plugging it in again. It will then load the latest version of the EPG.

I mentioned earlier that I had problems getting my free to view card to work. Hopefully, if you have your card when the system is installed, the installer will set it up and you won't have a problem. but here's how to proceed if you have problems.

Firstly you have to phone to register your card to enable it. This is in spite of the fact that the instructions that come with the card tell you to simply plug it in and it will work. They need to know the serial number and version number of the digibox. They then tell you they will send a signal to enable the card which may take up to 24 hours.

Well I found I still didn't get any extra channels. So what I had to do, was go to the hidden installation menu again (Services, 4, 0, 1, Select) and chose the "New Installation" option. This searched for new channels, and finally enabled all my new free to view channels. Again, if you have the card when the installer comes, he should do all this for you, so make sure you order your free to view card in plenty of time.

Now a few comments about the digibox and it's user friendliness. One nice feature, is the remote control is able to control your TV as well. At first I thought how brilliant, they have thought about how the average user will use the system. Then I thought what a lost oportunity. If they can make it work your TV, why couldn't they have made it also work your video recorder. Okay you would need a couple of extra buttons, or double up the function of some. It's technically feasible, so as I say a lost oportunity there.

A digression about setting up the remote for your TV. You have to enter a code, depending upon the manufacturer of your TV. I have a quite old Grundig TV. Made before remote codes were standardised, and it didn't work when set up with the code for a Grundig. Out of curiosity, I thought I would try some other codes, and found it works when set up for an Alba, so worth experimenting if you have trouble.

Normally you choose the channel you want to watch, either by selecting it from the Electronic Program Guide (EPG) which is an on screen menu, or by typing it it's 3 digit channel number. the problem with the EPG is that it shows all channels, even those you do not have a subscription to, so is not necessarily easy to find what you want.

There is a better way. You can programm up to 20 of your preferred channels as "favourites". Then by pressing the blue button on the remote, you step through just the favourite channels, making it much easier to find what you want.

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8. What don't you get with Digital TV.

Now what you don't get. Well I mentioned earlier that I still have two old Analogue satelite receivers. Firstly on the Astra 1 satellites (19.2 degrees East), For some reason that I cannot understand, there are a few English channels still transmitting free to air on Analogue, but which require a subscription on Digital satelite. These are CNBC, Bloomberg(daytime only), and Eurosport. Why oh why if they are free to air on analogue, are they subscription channels on Digital?. Also from Astra 1 is CNN News, which is also free on Digital Satellite. I have my Second Analogue receiver looking at Hotbird at 13 degrees East (two LNB's on one dish). From this I receive BBC World, which although not "officially" available in the UK, is transmitted without encryption, so can freely be received without problem. Also DW TV, a German news programme, shows a mixture of different languages at different times, sometimes in English. There is also the religious channel TBN Europe in English which is also free on Digital Satellite.

There are a great deal of foreign free to air television channels still on analogue, Mostly German from Astra1 and a mixture of languages from Hotbird. You might think these are of no value unless you speak other languages. Well not so. There are for instance 4 German music channels on Astra 1. Although a lot of the presentation is in German, most of the Music is in English. Also one of the German channels shows the Grand Prix live. So while watching on ITV, when the adverts come on, I switch to the German channel on Analogue satelite to continue watching it during the commercial break, then switch back to ITV. This probably applies to other sporting events as well.

If you want to find out more about using an old analogue satellite system for free to view television, have a look at this other excellent web site

Of course Analogue satelite TV, is gradually being closed down. I suspect the few remaining English channels to be the first to close, but some of the foreign ones are likely to stay longer as other countries are slower at switching to digital television. So personally I wouldn't pay much money for an analogue satellite system, but if you look aroung you will probably find someone with an old system that they will give you for next to nothing. If you are only interested in free to view television, it is still worth having for a bit longer as it adds a few more channels to your choice.

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9. What about multi channel viewing.

So you have your digital TV system. Great you can watch all your extra digital channels, even in other rooms if you have taken the trouble to cable it up correctly. But what if there is more than one of you in the house, and you both want to watch different channels?

Well at the moment not too much of a problem, as long as you don't both want to watch a digital channel at the same time. You can watch ONE digital channel, and one or more analogue channels together, so for the time being, that's a compromise that most will live with.

But what will happen in 5 to 10 years when analogue TV is turned off? If all you have is one digibox, or one IDTV, then you will only be able to watch one channel at a time. Most households won't be satisfied with this.

The only FULL solution, is to replace EVERY TV in your house with an IDTV, or have a set top box for each. This is where the problems start and where the limitations of Digital TV begin. However since analogue TV IS going to be turned off, you must start thinking NOW how you will deal with it.

The first thing is to plan ahead. If you require an extra television set now, Don't buy an ordinary analogue television, otherwise you are just adding to the changeover problem that you WILL have to deal with sooner or later. If you can aford it, and find one that suits you, buy an IDTV (or DVB TV), that should continue working even after analogue switch off. Likewise with a video recorder. Eventually these too will have to be made with built in digital decoders, but none are yet available. My advise if you must have an aditional television or video now, is to buy something cheap second hand, and regard it almost as disposable.

There is a problem with satelite TV. One Minidish, feeds one Digibox and allows you to watch one channel. It is not possible with this standard equipment to receive two different channels together. Furthermore, it's not possible to connect two digiboxes to one standard minidish. You can however put a "Quad" LNB on your dish, and that will allow it to feed up to four ordinary Sky Digiboxes, each watching a different channel. Each box will require it's own card (either a Sky card or a free to view card). Some have done this by buying several second hand digiboxes and has proved a good solution for them.

Sky are however now beginning to address this issue. There are two new developments that have been launched, one is Sky Plus and the other is a discounted second box and subscription. Sky plus is a new replacement for the standard digibox that retails for about £300 plus a monthly subscription of £10. Basically it's a digibox with two digital tuners and a built in PVR (see section 10), so it allows you to watch one Sky channel while recording a second to watch later. It won't allow you to watch two at the same time however. To achieve this they replace your existing LNB with a 4 output version, and have two coaxial cables feeding from the dish to the sky plus box. The other related multichannel option is you can now buy a second subscription card for £12 per month, so you can watch two channels at once, and if you need a second digibox you can buy that for about £250. Neither of these is of much help to a free to air viewer, but a step in the right direction nonetheless.

there is a compromise solution that I have which I feel will satisfy the viewing needs of most households. I already have my Sky Digibox which is connected to all TV's in the house and I now have an ex On Digital terestrial set top box connected to the main TV in the living room. This gives us a choice to two digital channels together, Then as soon as they start making video recorders with built in Digital receivers, I will buy one of those as well. After analogue swich off, this set up will allow two seperate digital channels to be watched, while recording a third. That I think will be an acceptable compromise, and not as expensive as replacing all the televisions.

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10. What about Video recorders and PVR's.

You probably have one or more VHS video recorders in your house, so how do these figure in a Digital TV age?

The simple answer is about as well as an analogue TV. Okay you can use a normal video recorder to record digital TV from a set top box, or even an IDTV using the Scart input, or also by using the UHF output from the modulator built into most set top boxes. So for the time being that's a solution that most will live with. However it has one very big limitation, that whilst recording a digital TV channel, you cannot at the same time watch another one (unless you have 2 or more digital TV's or set top boxes). So whilst recording a digital channel you can only watch another analogue channel. Well that's sort of okay now, but what happens after analogue switch off?

The only way you will ever be able to record a digital channel while watching a different digital channell is to have a digital tuner built into the video recorder. So firstly in my opinion it's about time the manufacturers started building them (none are available yet) I guess they would be called IDVCR's (like IDTV's). This has to happen eventually and certainly before analogue switch off can happen. So once again my advice is don't buy a new video recorder yet, put up with your old one and wait a while to see how the market evolves.

The newest recording devices comming onto the market now are refered to PVR's or personal video recorders. These on the face of it seem to be a good idea. Instead of recording onto a VHS tape, they digitise the signal and record it onto a built in hard disk drive. Typically they can record between 8 and 40 hours of video, depending on the picture quality that you select. So they look like a good idea, however when you start looking at them, they are not as good as you might think, and not for technical reasons.

No, the problems seem to be one of marketing. In order to try and "improve" them and give them an advantage over a standard video recorder, they have tried to add extra features. These new "features" are things like anticipating what you want to record (you recorded it last week so probably want to record it this week etc). Well that in itself is not the problem. No, the problem is all of them require a monthly subscription to a "listings" service, which the PVR connects to periodically via your phone line. The monthly subscriptions seem to all be in the region of £10 per month, though sometimes there is an option to buy a lifetime subscription.

This is the bit that I take exception to. Nobody has ever paid a subscription to use a VHS Video recorder. You buy it and it's yours. You programme it to record what you want when you want. So why is anyone going to want to pay a monthly subscription just to be able to record a few programmes. I think the majority will not. So once more we find ourselves with a good technical soulution, made (in my opinion) useless my the marketing strategy. I also do not trust a system that only works by continually phoning to a listings service. Why is this necessary? Why can't you just tell it what programme to record and when. I am concerned that without the listings service being available the PVR won't work, so what happens if after buying one, the company that made it goes bust and the listings service closes down. You will be left with an expensive door stop. So no unfortunately I once more recomend that they are not any good in their preent form. I can only hope that eventually a PVR will become available without a monthly subscription fee and without the need for this listings service, so that once you have bought it, it will continue to function at no cost to you.

I mentioned Sky plus earlier when talking about multichannel viewing. It is a PVR and two tuner digibox built into one box. It allows you to record one digital satellite channel while watching a second, but won't allow you to watch two at the same time. It too requires a monthly subscription to work and a connection to your phone line. Also it's only available to subscribers, so of no interest to free to view watchers.

Now let's start dreaming. What would be the ideal peice of consumer electronics to kick start the Digital television revolution. Well, here is the device that I would like to see available:

It would be based upon a PVR, but would of course not need any subscriptions. You would program it in exactly the same sort of way you program an ordinary video recorder.
It would have a built in digital terestrial tuner, so straight away you can record or watch all the free to air digital terestrial channels. So when not recording it would also double as a DTT set top box.
A more expensive version would have TWO DTT tuners built in to record one digital channel while watching another.
It will have a Scart output to connect to the TV, and a UHF Analogue output, so it can act as a feed to other old analogue televisions around the house.
It will be supplied with a universal remote control. As well as controlling the device (haven't decided what to call it) it will be programmable to drive two different TV's, a satellite receiver, and a normal video recorder.

Now that may be asking a lot, but all of it is technically feasible, and not that expensive, it's just that nobody has put all this together in one box. In my opinion it would be a really usefull piece of kit, that would instantly give people access to digital terestrial television and a really good means of time shifting programes. This may not be a dream much longer. It is rumoured that Pace are soon to market a device that fits this description in early 2003, at a cost of about £350

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11. Disclaimer

All the information on this site is derived as a result of my personal experience installing a Sky Digital satelite system and an ex On Digital set top box in my home for free to view channels. I believe it to be correct, but I do not accept any responsibility whatsoever for anything that happens to you as a result of using the information on this site. You use this information therefore entirely at your own risk. In particular I take no responsibility for what happens as a result of making changes to any of the settings of your digibox. Any changes you make are entirely at your own risk. Please be prudent and make a note of the old settings first, so if things go wrong you can put it back.

Please be aware that Digital TV is a new and evolving technology. As such things are liable to change so it must be considered less stable than analogue TV. However since it is the stated aim of the Government to switch off analogue TV transmissions within the next 5 to 10 years, I think it's a pretty safe bet that digital TV is here to stay in the UK.

this site is deliberately intended as a simple source of basic information. It's not a flashy colourfull graphicly presented site, and never will be. It's just a simple and hopefully helpfull source of information.

I hope to continue adding to it or ammending it as digital TV evolves.

You may freely copy the text of the information presented here, providing you give credit to the fact you found it on http://how.to/digitaltv, and include the disclaimer. You may not copy any of the html or java code used within the website.

If you want to contact me you may do so by email

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12. Other usefull sites

If you are interested in Digital TV in general, here is a list of other sites that I am aware of that will be of interest to you. As well as providing up to date news about Digital Television developments, many of them have usefull discussion forums. I am not associated with any of these sites in any way.

free2view.tv
DigitalSpy.co.uk
MediaUK.com
DTG.org.uk
DVBInfo.co.uk
TVForum.co.uk
FreeToView.co.uk
BBC.co.uk/digital
Digitaltv.Culture.gov.uk
Davesull.dabsol.co.uk
Analoguesat.co.uk
www.geocities.com/digitalsatuk
www.John-Walton.co.uk
SkyDigi.host.sk

If you know of any other good Digital TV related site, please tell me so I can add them to this list.

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